


The Surrogate

by Ovipositivity



Category: Original Work
Genre: Egg Laying, Eggpreg, Eggs, F/F, Human/Monster Society, Masturbation, Other, Oviposition, Pregnancy, Teratophilia, drider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 13:23:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17868050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ovipositivity/pseuds/Ovipositivity
Summary: College student June Mariam answers a personal ad and finds a stranger in need of intimate assistance.





	1. Chapter 1

It occurred to June, as she rode the bus, that there was every possibility she was walking into a scam.

It had happened before, of course.  There was the free iPhone for taking a survey, the free timeshare for sitting through a presentation, the free gift card for giving up her email address… she had never responded to a Nigerian prince, but she supposed it was only a matter of time.  Why was she  _ so  _ gullible?  She rested her chin on her palm and sighed.  What a waste of a day. 

The ad had appeared in the student newspaper, crammed way in the back next to people selling old skateboards and dubious test prep courses.   _ Are you a woman aged 18-24?  Earn cash for participating in a fertility program!  One afternoon of work will earn you $2000! _  Frankly, she needed the cash.  Textbooks weren’t getting any cheaper, and every time she logged on to her student loans portal the number depressed her so much she logged right back out again.  She’d tried selling plasma, but at 5’2” and 110 pounds soaking wet they couldn’t get much from her. Some of her friends had been trying to get her to participate in live cam shows like they did, but June liked to think she wasn’t raised that way.  Besides, any video of you that ended up on the internet never went away. Everyone knew that.

Still, even by the standards of college student get-rich-quick schemes, this was a dumb one.  She checked to make sure she had Mace in her purse. Better safe than sorry-- the bus was traveling into a rougher part of town, and a fertility program was the best hook to ensnare young college beauties.  

The address she had been given was two blocks from the next stop.  June figured she might as well check it out, on the off-chance that it was legit.   _ If it’s just a warehouse or someone’s home I’m turning right around.  I might as well hear them out, though.  _ The bus pulled up to the corner and the doors hissed open.  Lost in thought, June almost missed it, and had to jump up and wave her hands to stop the driver from leaving without letting her off.  As it was, the woman behind the wheel grumbled and shot her a glare as she disembarked. June coughed in the sudden exhaust cloud as the bus sped off and looked around her.

She was in an unfamiliar area a few miles north of campus.  The buildings here were dingy towers of red brick. They loomed overhead, their grimy windows staring blindly at each other.  The few shops she could see were mostly corner stores, pawn brokers and electronics repairmen. The people hurrying past her on the broken sidewalks looked downcast and weathered.  None made eye contact with her as she passed. It was a sunny day, but here the brightness seemed muted, as though the clouds had thickened and congealed above this part of town. Despite the summer warmth June shivered.  This was not a promising start.

She walked north for a block or two.  The address was 1414 Terebra Avenue, which proved to be a squat brick professional building.  A sign out front announced that it was home to two LICSWs, a divorce attorney, a tax preparer, and the mysterious Ah Crane, MD.  That had been the name from the ad, so at least she was in the right place. She paused in front of the glass atrium door and looked at her distorted reflection.  Her skin was dark caramel, her hair long and black. Her features were fine, even delicate, though her mother had always complained about the silver nose stud she wore, saying it “ruined her beautiful face.”  That was a bit hypocritical, June thought, given the giant hoop earrings her mother preferred, but she had always been old-fashioned. June wore a faded grey T-shirt and hip-hugger jeans that did little to accentuate her figure-- not that she needed any help in that regard.  She had always had the kind of hourglass curves that had inspired jealousy among her female friends, with large, shapely breasts and a prominent, heart-shaped bottom. Maybe that was why the fertility ad had caught her eye-- her mother had always said, much to June’s embarrassment, that she had “good childbearing hips.”  The old bat was probably hoping she’d get to arrange a marriage for June, but she was going to be disappointed. 

She pushed open the door and found herself in a narrow hallway with mud-brown carpeting, flanked by a pair of drab plastic plants.  The smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the air here and she moved on before she started to cough. Dr. Crane’s office was the last door on the left.  June paused outside, knocked, and waited. After thirty seconds with no reply she turned the knob and let herself in. 

Inside, the room was surprisingly dim, lit only by glowing electric candles in the corners.  They gave off a fitful, flickering light that filled the room with dancing shadows. Besides that, it seemed like a normal doctor’s waiting room.  There was a coffee table, a half dozen plastic chairs, even six-month-old issues of  _ People  _ and  _ Newsweek _ and…  _ The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine?   _ Ok, that was kind of weird, but aside from that this was seeming more and more legitimate.  There was even a receptionist’s desk, currently unoccupied. A door behind the desk led deeper into the building.  June looked for a bell on the desk, and, not finding one, rapped her knuckles against the wood and called out. “Hello?  Anyone here? It’s June Mariam. I called ahead? I saw your ad in the paper?”

There was a strange sound from beyond the door-- a scurrying, like several people running at once.  Then the door opened a crack and a woman in a lab coat leaned out. She was Asian and looked to be in her mid-thirties.  Her straight black hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail and she wore square black-framed glasses, which she pushed up the bridge of her nose as she regarded June  For a moment she looked confused, then recognition hit. “Oh, you’re the student? You’re here for the fertility program?”

June nodded.  She wondered if Dr. Crane (if that was who it was) was going to come into the room and maybe shake her hand or sign her in.  Instead, the doctor just looked at her. She seemed to be sizing June up. The look went on just long enough to be uncomfortable, but before June could say anything, Dr. Crane said “Very good.  I will be with you shortly. Please come into the back and take the second door on your left.” Without waiting for a response she withdrew and closed the door behind her. 

_ Well, that was weird _ .  June wondered why the doctor hadn’t just opened the door for her.  She shrugged and followed her into the back. The door opened onto a hallway that stretched away left and right.  There was no sign of Dr. Crane. The gloom here was more sepulchral; June squinted into the darkness. Were they having electrical problems?  Was that what had taken her host’s attention? She figured that it couldn’t be that bad if they were still open. She turned left and felt her way along the wall until she found the second door, and stepped inside.

June found herself in an exam room.  It was much larger than she had expected-- normally small clinics like this had tiny, poky rooms that could barely fit a doctor and a patient at once.  This one was at least fifteen fit across, with high ceilings and very little furniture. There was no computer, no rack of jars, no array of tools. All there was was a curiously shaped metal chair.  It had obstetrician’s stirrups, but the positioning was all wrong. She wondered for the first time about just what kind of procedure she had signed up for. She had been to her gynecologist just recently, and had received a clean bill of health, but it wasn’t an experience she was eager to repeat.

She slouched into the chair, folding her legs over one another and letting them hang rather than using the stirrups.  Laying back, she relaxed. This actually seemed to be somewhat legitimate. Maybe she’d get the money after all. She passed the time thinking about how to budget it out.  Next semester’s textbooks were $700, but that left plenty of money for--

There was a sharp pinch at the base of her neck.  Startled, she jerked up and felt around. Was it a bee or wasp or something?  Her questing fingers felt a welt and, behind it, something sharp and metal attached to the chair.  She tried to twist around to see it, but all of a sudden her limbs felt very heavy.  _ Wha-?  Was I just drugged?  What the fuck? _

That scurrying sound came from the hallway again, and the doctor leaned around the door.  She spoke clearly, without any trace of accent. “June Mariam? I am Dr. Crane. Are you settled in comfortably?  Yes? Good.” June tried to respond, but her lips and teeth wouldn’t move properly, and she chewed at the words before slurring into silence.  Raising one hand was an impossible, Herculean task. Dr. Crane watched her dispassionately, then stepped forward into the room.

It seemed to June that her senses were swimming, too.  Dr. Crane had only been a couple of inches taller than June, but now she loomed over her.  Looking down, June could see why. From the waist up, Dr. Crane was a young, attractive Asian woman with tan skin and black hair.  Below that she was a monstrosity. Her torso, bare below the navel, fused seamlessly into a chitinous brown thorax, from which depended eight hooked limbs.  A bulbous abdomen bristling with tiny hairs hung below the thorax. Her human half reached down, gently moving June’s limbs around, making sure she was comfortable and didn’t rest too heavily on any of them.  She fussed over June like a mother hen, seemingly oblivious to the girl’s slow, uncoordinated flailing.

“Please calm down. Ms. Mariam.”  The calm, silky voice was incongruous coming from such a being.  June tried to look at her only from the waist up; the sight of her eight spidery legs shifting across the floor to maintain balance was making her seasick.  The clicking their sharp points made against the tile was hardly better. “Please be calm. You are in no danger. I apologize for the deception and for… administering a muscle relaxant.  It was the only way to prevent you fleeing. I cannot have my presence here compromised.” She leaned in close. “ _ Please _ , Ms. Mariam.  I need your help.  I was serious in my ad.  Please hear me out, then you are free to go if you wish.”

This wasn’t a dream.  This was really happening.  June could smell Dr. Crane, the strange, peppermint odor that wafted off her.  She forced down her panic and tried to nod. The best she could accomplish was a lolling roll of her head, but it got the message across.

“Thank you, Ms. Mariam.  I am in need of aid. Like my ad said, it is a matter of fertility.”  She gestured at her abdomen. “My time is close. I am carrying eggs, but their father was human, and they need a human host to complete their gestation.  I would like to use you. I will implant the eggs in you, and you will carry them for one month, then return here to give birth. I promise you, it will be neither painful nor traumatic.  You will be none the worse for wear for the experience. In return I will offer you five-- no, ten thousand dollars.”

_ Ten thousand dollars! _  The number filled June’s mind.  It was more money that she had ever owned.  It was more money than she had ever seen in one place.  What she could do with ten thousand dollars… no, this was crazy!  What was she thinking? Was she seriously considering letting this… monster parasitize her?  Her head rolled back and forth. Dr. Crane lurched backwards as if stung, and her face grew somber.

“I will not force you.  But you must know… these eggs are my children.  They are all I have to remember my husband by.” She reached into a pocket of her coat and pulled out a photo, wallet-sized.  It showed Dr. Crane from the chest up next to a man, his arm around her shoulder, her arm around his. They were smiling. She continued “He… passed away recently.  If I cannot find a surrogate for my children, they will die. And I will… I will have…” tears rolled down her cheeks, and she took a deep breath. “They are my only link to him.  The man I loved, the life I would have had… all gone, now, except for this last chance. So please, I beg you. Please help me.” She let out a choked sob. “I do not have long. If they die, I will die, too.  I would not mind, to be with my beloved Joshua, but… my children need me. They need you.”

Tears pricked June’s eyes.  She stared up at the woman above her, and for a moment, saw her as just a woman.  A mother. She thought of her own siblings, and the child her mother had lost, the hole in their family every year…she let her head sink forward and pulled it back with as much coordination as she could muster.  Straining, she lifted the fingers of one hand, and Dr. Crane took it. June gave her a pitiful squeeze, the best she could do, and the spider-woman squeezed back.

“Oh, thank you!  Thank you!” Dr. Crane smiled and blinked back tears.  “I will begin at once. I will have to remove your pants and underwear, I am afraid.”  She reached down and unbuttoned June’s jeans, her delicate fingers sliding back the zipper.  The slow, exaggerated care with which she undressed June reminded the girl of awkward encounters during her freshman year; she arched her back as best she could to help.  Dr. Crane’s fingers were long and nimble, and she soon had June’s pants around her ankles. She pulled them off and folded them carefully, then reached back and slid down June’s red satin panties.  She had worn them on a whim today, and felt oddly embarrassed about someone else seeing them, but she supposed that it didn’t matter now. As her pussy was exposed, she thanked her stars she had shaved in the shower that morning.  It didn’t matter here, but she still didn’t like being seen with body hair. Just a personal quirk.

With her patient undressed, Dr. Crane lifted June’s legs onto the stirrups and secured them with tight plastic straps.  The position was somewhat uncomfortable, and June resisted the urge to try to twist her legs together. She felt exposed, with her legs spread and her nether lips ever-so-slightly parted.  She forced it down. This was to help another person (of sorts) in need… and for ten thousand dollars, don’t forget!

Still, she had to fight back panic when Dr. Craned reared up above her.  Standing on her four rear limbs, the spider-woman was more than ten feet high.  She smiled down, but in the dim light her grin looked more predatory than reassuring.  With her human arms she held on to June’s shoulders, then a look of intense concentration twisted her features.  With a wet squelch, something began to slide out of a slit in her abdomen. June watched as eight, ten, twelve inches of slimy grey flesh slithered out of the spider’s body, then kept going.  She tried to take deep breaths.  _ This is really happening.  It’s really happening. It’s ok.  I’m safe. I’m going to be fine. I chose to allow this.  Oh God, why? Why did I agree to this? Too late to change my mind now! _  When sixteen inches of tube had emerged from Dr. Crane’s abdomen, she opened her eyes and smiled at June.  “I’m going to begin now, Ms. Mariam. I promise you I will be gentle.”

She leaned down and took June’s hands in her own.  June breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. Her mother had recited calming sutras to her when she was a child and she tried to bring them to mind.  “Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum…” she mumbled between numbed lips. To her surprise, Dr. Crane joined in with her. The spider-woman’s voice was low and husky as she chanted, almost hypnotic.  June felt herself slipping into a relaxed trance.

Something nudged at her pussy, and she gasped.  It rested against her entrance, pulsing softly. It was warm and rubbery.  Her breathing sped up. This was it. This was really it. Slowly, gently, Dr. Crane leaned forward, still chanting, and her ovipositor slid inside June.

It was immense.  June was an attractive young woman and had had her share of flings and relationships, but no man’s member had stretched her out this way.  The ovipositor was slightly ribbed and she could feel each section as it thrust into her exposed pussy. The ribs brushed against her internal walls, sending delicate tremors through her lower body.  June moaned helplessly as she felt inch after inch of thick, muscular flesh penetrate deeper and deeper into her cunt. Dr. Crane paused and looked at her with an expression of alarm, but something in June’s eyes must have reassured her, as she continued to press forward after only a moment’s hesitation.  She closed her own eyes and shivered, her lips slightly parted, her eyelids fluttering. Did this feel as intense for her as it did for June? No way to ask now.

The ovipositor widened as it entered her, and twinges of pain distracted June from her musings.  She gritted her teeth. Looking down, she could see a slight bump in her abdomen beneath her tight t-shirt.  Dr. Crane smiled reassuringly down at her and paused in her invasion. “You’re going to feel something warm in a moment.  It’s ok. It’ll help relax your muscles.” She squeezed June’s hand. Deep inside her body, June felt a blossoming warmth, a wet sensation that flowed outward from the ovipositor.   _ Did she just cum in me?  What is that? _  Some kind of fluid was pouring from the ovipositor’s tip; a small amount erupted from the edges of her tightly plugged pussy with an obscene squelch, spattering her thighs with off-white goo.  

June felt the pain of her stretching subside.  The spider-woman waited a moment longer, then resumed pushing.  Fascinated, June watched as her cunt greedily swallowed inch after inch of the ovipositor.  She had never imagined putting something that large inside her, and yet it was filling her up with no discomfort.  She felt it bump against something deep inside her and come a stop.  _ My cervix _ , she marveled, _ it’s already reached my uterus.  Does that mean-? _

She gasped as she felt the pressure inside her mounting.  Above her, Dr. Crane’s teeth were gritted with effort. June’s eyes widened, and she let out a yelp as she felt her internal barriers yielding to the inexorable push.  She swore she could hear a faint  _ pop _ as the tip of the ovipositor battered down the last resistance and forced itself inside her womb.

Looking down, she could see her shirt tenting up just above her hips.  It looked like an optical illusion, and she blinked twice to clear her vision.  No illusion-- and she could feel an alien presence deep inside her, much deeper than seemed possible.  She felt like a butterfly impaled on a pin. She wriggled experimentally, but the muscle relaxant turned her motion into the slow-motion flailing of a hooked fish.  The ovipositor, lodged so deeply inside her, didn’t budge. She swallowed deeply and tried to breath.

A surge of peristalsis rippled along the tube, tearing a gasp from June’s throat.  She felt it moving, shifting inside her. Another gout of warm fluid burst from the tip, and the little protrusion beneath her skin swelled up larger.  Something was coming. It paused at the entrance to her stretched, protesting pussy-- a round shape, firm yet pliant, bulging out the sides of the ovipositor.  Her eyes teared up as she felt it push her bruised cunny open even further. With a wet  _ schlorp _ it slipped into her and began to glide along her slick fuck-tunnel.  The rippling sensation of its progress was overpowering. She felt it stimulating her most sensitive spots as it traced a path.  She shuddered as muscular contractions shook her. Her orgasm came without warning, surging up from the primal depths of her brain, overpowering even her fear and dread with raw ecstasy.  Her toes curled and her eyelids twitched as she came, a groaning gurgle escaping her lips. The egg pushed past the last barrier into her womb and settled there, adhering to her internal walls.  She groaned with release as she felt it take its place nestled inside her.

By now the second egg was already marching through her sloppy gash.  This time the orgasm was a continuous thing, a string of firecrackers that detonated behind her eyes as the invader plunged deeper into her.  Inch by inch it conquered her body and inch by inch she surrendered to it, letting the pleasure wash over her.

Ten eggs in all passed from Dr. Crane into June’s welcoming body.  Her hungry cunt swallowed them all, and her womb expanded tremendously to bear them.  Each new arrival further bloated and distended her belly. By the time Dr. Crane withdrew from June’s womb, the college girl’s stomach was as round and plump as that of a woman in the ninth month of pregnancy-- likely with twins, by the size of it.  Her t-shirt had ridden high up, exposing her now-inverted navel and the smooth, glistening skin of her taut belly. Dr. Crane laid a hand on it, an expression of wonder on her face, rubbing her fingers back and forth as though she could caress her babies to sleep.  She picked up June’s own hands and rested them on her belly. June splayed out her fingers and sat back, a happy grin on her fuck-addled face.

With a wet slurping sound, Dr. Crane withdrew the drooping ovipositor from June’s gaping snatch.  With a belching sound, her nether lips twitched and disgorged a trickle of the pale goop, which glugged out of her blown-out pussy and pooled on the floor.  “You may want some fresh garments, my dear,” said the spider-woman. “Don’t worry, your body should return to normal within a week after the birth. The hormones will help.”

June’s head was swimming.  She was tired, battered, and nauseous, but she couldn’t help feeling the satisfaction of victory.   _ I took all this.  Me! I thought I’d burst, but I didn’t.  And now I get $10000! And… children…  _ The thought was odd.  The things resting in her womb right now were the farthest thing from children she could imagine, and yet she couldn’t help feeling maternal about it.  They were Dr. Crane’s, but they were also hers. Her babies. She wondered idly how she would explain her bloated belly to her classmates, but found that she didn’t much care.  The important thing was to keep her babies safe. To nurture them, and to see that they ended up with their mother. 

Dr. Crane helped her out of the chair.  The paralysis was wearing off, and June found that she could move again, albeit with pins and needles in every limb.  “Dr. Crane, I-”

“Ms. Mariam, thank you,” the other woman interrupted.  “What you have done for me today… I… I will never forget it.  Never. I know how difficult it must have been, and if you need anything, I will--”    
  
“No, that’s not it, Doctor,” replied June.  “I just wanted to tell you-- that I’m glad. I’m glad I did this.  Thank you. Now-- do you have something else I can wear?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June struggles with eggnancy

_ Week 0 _

June regarded the clothes Dr. Crane had laid out for her without enthusiasm.  The doctor may have been a half-woman, half-spider creature from myth, but she was also a bit of a frump, and it showed.  She had laid out a pair of loose jeans so worn and shapeless that June thought she might be able to wear them as a coat, and a faded hoodie that smelled like a moth graveyard.  The jeans, in particular, made June uncomfortable. They certainly weren’t designed for a four-hundred-pound, eight-legged spider-woman. Were they Dr. Crane’s? Did this mean she hadn’t always been… well, like  _ that _ ?  What had happened to her?  Was she once in June’s current position?  Had June just bought a lifetime pass? The initial rush had worn off, and with it her feeling of triumph.  Right now she felt bloated and gassy and weird. Her confident stride had been reduced to a self-conscious waddle, and her preposterously stretched stomach felt like a heavy backpack slung around her midsection.  When she closed her eyes, she could see a gluey mass of eggs filling up her womb, an image so lifelike that it shocked her.

“June?  Are you having trouble, dear?”  Dr. Crane’s voice called from the other side of the doorway.  June was in a small patient room, the kind with the elevated couch with a roll of tissue paper on it.  She had managed—with difficulty—to step into her panties and pull them far enough up that they disappeared beneath the cresting swell of her belly.  The jeans were another matter entirely.

“Yes, Doctor Crane!  I’ll be right out!” June called.  Her voice sounded quavery even to her ears.  The doctor seemed nice enough— and the check she had pressed into June’s hands certainly looked real— but every time June looked at her for too long, her eyes started to water.  It was the smooth interface between pale human skin and the bristly spider’s body. Whatever the woman was, she certainly wasn’t human, at least not fully. How did you even start a conversation like that?  “Um, excuse me, Doctor… I can’t help but notice that you’re half-spider.” Dr. Crane didn’t seem inclined to explain herself any more than she already had, and the way she fussed around June was making the younger woman nervous.  She supposed it was meant to be motherly, but she couldn’t help thinking of a children’s book her mother had read to her when she was younger. In it, Miss Spider had been a charming hostess, always taking her guests’ coats and pouring them cups of tea… but the guests had been Fly Boys, and none of them had ever been seen again.  

June reached into the pocket of the jeans and pulled out the check again.  Ten thousand dollars, made out to June Mariam, from the office of Dr. Ah Crane, MD.   _ Where does a giant spider even get money from, anyways?  It can’t be from actually seeing patients here, can it?  _ The answer that immediately presented itself was not comforting.   _ She gets it from her patients.  The ones unlucky enough to come here don’t need it where they’re going _ .  

She shivered and turned her attention back to the jeans.  After pulling them on and straining to button their one remaining button over her expanded waistline, she wriggled into the hoodie.  Looking in the mirror, she had to admit it was pretty concealing. All an observer could say about June is that she was in there somewhere.  She pocketed the check and pulled the hood up over her head. One month, huh? She could do this for a month. 

 

_ Week 1 _

June groaned, retched once again, and rolled over, arms still wrapped around the toilet tank.  Her head rested against the chrome pipes underneath the sink, her lank ponytail almost dragging across the bathroom floor.  Not for the first time, she wondered if ten thousand dollars was really worth all this.

It could have been worse, she supposed.  Dr. Crane had provided her with a doctor’s note: a diagnosis of a rare and highly contagious virus, possibly contracted in the lab.  June wasn’t about to sue the school, but the dark intimation that they had somehow exposed one of their precious charges to danger had sent the administration scrambling.  They had agreed to the proposed one-month quarantine, arranging an off-campus apartment and allowing her to take her classes remotely. The cafeteria even sent a runner to deliver her meals twice a day.  June felt ridiculous about the whole thing, but it wasn’t as though she was going to tell anyone the truth. 

Dr. Crane had been adamant about that: “You cannot let anyone know I exist.  Quite apart from what they’d do to me if they knew, they certainly would love to get at my children.”  June had quailed from the fire in the spider-woman’s eyes. “They can’t have my babies.  They _can’t_.  So you can’t let a doctor examine you, June, no matter what they say.”

“What do I tell them?” June had babbled, on the verge of panic.  “That I just suddenly showed up nine months pregnant? ‘I dunno, doc, I had a lot to drink last night and when I woke up for my walk of shame, I looked like this?’”  Dr. Crane had shaken her head. “No. I am a doctor, you know. That’s not a cover story. I’ll provide you a note.” 

So she had, and so June had spent the last week in this cramped shoebox of an apartment, with pipes that clanged all night and boards that creaked like the doors of a haunted house.  At least the thermostat worked. She kept it cranked up to 85 degrees, and sometimes even that wasn’t enough; sometimes, she had to run a hot shower for half an hour, to get the apartment nice and humid.  It was the only way she could get comfortable these days.

Without looking into the toilet, she flushed away the remains of her Cheerios and dragged herself to her feet.  Looking in the mirror, she saw a haggard girl with dark skin and limp, greasy hair. Even her silver nose stud looked less like a cheeky accessory and more like a metallic tumor.  Her eyes were sunken and ringed by heavy black bags. It was hard to sleep: her huge stomach made it impossible to get comfortable, and her morning sickness was working double shifts, as well.  She wasn’t sure if any of this was normal. What  _ was _ normal, anyways, for a college student carrying a litter of spiders?  She had been reading  _ What to Expect When You’re Expecting _ on her Kindle, and her Google history was full of terms like  _ pregnancy normal nausea, pregnancy how much sleep, pregnancy feet hurt,  _ and once, from a 4am that seemed like it would never end,  _ pregnancy why bother _ .  She hadn’t been craving peanut butter covered pickles or any of the other weird stuff that pregnant women supposedly wanted, but for a girl who had previously flirted with veganism, her diet had been getting very carnivorous.  Packets of all-pork hot dogs filled her fridge, and the last couple she hadn’t even bothered cooking first. 

Two things stopped her from calling Dr. Crane to complain.  The first was the overwhelming likelihood that the spider-woman would reassure her that everything was normal, that there was nothing to be concerned about, that she was doing  _ so well  _ and it would all be over soon.  June didn’t want to hear that. She wasn’t a child, and she didn’t need to be patted on the head.  She was at least an equal partner in this endeavour, and the idea that Dr. Crane would keep her in the dark pissed her off.

The other thing stopping her was her fear that Dr. Crane would tell her something had gone wrong.  “You’re in danger, June!” she would say. “You have to come here at once!” And would she? Would she go back to the monstrous Dr. Crane and put herself in danger again?  More than likely, Crane would decide to cancel the whole plan and dispose of the witness. But if she was in danger, could she go to a normal hospital? She could picture it: the smiling nurse pressing the ultrasound wand against her belly, the cheerful smile dissolving into a horrified scream, the doctors murmuring all around her, the surgeries, the experiments, the tests… she’d have to tell them everything, and from there, the rest of her life would be as a curiosity.  The Girl Who Fucked A Spider. 

So no, she wouldn’t call.  She would eat some oatmeal— wonderful, bland, unsugared oatmeal—then she would write a paper for her Psych class, then she would watch Mindhunter until she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

 

_ Week 2 _

In the dark, cramped hallways of 1414 Terebra Avenue, Dr. Crane paced back and forth.  She was an impressive pacer. Her multi-jointed limbs clicked like callipers across the smooth tile floor.  She had a lot to pace about, these days, and not much else to do. 

She had lived a long time.  Dr. Ah Crane was her name, but it had not been her first name, and she knew it would not be her last.  She could not remember her birth name, but she supposed that it didn’t matter. There was nobody left alive who could pronounce its sibilant consonants.  Nobody but her, anyways. 

She recalled a word, a word she had heard in her medical training, a lifetime ago.  “Relict,” her professor had said. “The last survivor of a great family, clinging to life in a changing world.”  At the time, he had been agog at the rumor that a live coelacanth had been discovered off the coast of South Africa.  Dr. Crane had assumed that was her as well: relict, a fossil from a bygone era, stubbornly resisting inevitable extinction.  What had seemed inevitable then was no longer so, a miracle she would not have believed even a few years ago. And now this miracle was in the hands of a child, and there was nothing Dr. Crane could do.

She longed to visit June, but appearing in public was growing harder and harder.  Each time she took on her public guise it was more difficult, and the return to her true form more painful.  The day would come, she knew, when she would no longer be able to hide among humans. She hoped to hold out long enough to give her children a chance at a life in civilization.

Her anxious pacing brought her to an exam room like the others, and she let herself in.  This office had been a real practice once, but as her ability to disguise her nature waned, she had allowed the business to lapse.  Now it was just a dummy, a way for her to explain her income to the authorities and give her a place to live. She skittered across the floor and touched her hand to the call button set in the wall.  Instead of pinging the front desk, it caused a section of wall to slide soundlessly aside, revealing a set of galvanized metal steps too tall and narrow for human legs to navigate. They opened into an underground bunker, a vision right out of the nuclear paranoia of the 60s, complete with wall-mounted television and kitchenette.  It was fully furnished, but most of the appliances were dusty, and the fold-out bed in one corner looked as fresh and unused as a showroom display.

Only when she was fully underground did she allow herself to relax.  Down here, she had abandoned even the trappings of humanity. She shed her white coat and blouse like a molting reptile, revealing an expanse of shiny beige flesh.  She still looked human from the neck up, though her eyes were glassy and bulged a bit more than they should have, but her torso was as smooth as a department store mannequin’s.  A pair of enormous breasts swayed before her, traced with dark veins and tipped by wide, dark nipples. Her fingers were keratin-tipped hooks, her teeth needle fangs. Even the glamour she used to conceal these minor imperfections was growing more difficult to maintain.  She had to, though; no human could face her for long without screaming or fleeing in terror.

Almost no human.  She crossed the room to the kitchen and paused in front of the fridge.  It was festooned with magnets, hearts and puppies and rainbows and, incongruously, spiders out of a dollar store Halloween collection.  In the middle of the ring of magnets was a photograph held up with Scotch tape. It showed a man with short brown hair and steel-framed spectacles smiling and looking just past the lens.  Behind him, the setting sun was reflected in the still waters of a pond. His face was ruddy with exertion, but his grin was that of a man completely at peace with himself and his world. Dr. Crane smiled sadly and stroked one finger delicately across his forehead.  “Joshua…” she murmured, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “I’m doing my best, Joshua. Our children are safe. I think the girl is up to it.” She swallowed hard. “I hope she is. I miss you, Joshua. I wish you could see this. I wish you could meet her. You’d like her.”     
  
She stood in silence for a moment, then opened the fridge.  Inside were packet after packet of sausage, pork chops, steaks, tripe, ground chicken, sliced turkey… she selected a cut of lamb and ripped open the cellophane with one chitinous claw.  She looked at the stove for a moment, then lifted the meat to her jaws. No need to stand on ceremony. Not when she didn’t have company.

 

_ Week 3 _

June was cocooned.

A pipe had burst somewhere in the rattling foundations.  The ancient, corroded radiators wheezed their last, and an autumn chill descended on her apartment.  It wasn’t  _ that _ cold, at least not compared to what she was used to, but a numb fatigue descended on her all the same.  The trip from the bedroom to the bathroom-- a trip she had to make more than a dozen times a day now-- was an endless odyssey across a frigid tundra.    
  
She had been eating her meals cold, too.  June had always prided herself on her cooking.  She had been raised to take care of herself, not to rely on anyone else, and the bottom drawer of her desk was full of meticulously arranged and carefully labeled spice jars.  She had learned from her mother: cumin for digestion, caraway for sweetness, turmeric to help with inflammation. The smell of her naan used to fill the dorm’s cramped kitchen with admirers.  These days, she’d head into the kitchen, already planning a dish… but the sight of the fridge full of meat would flip some primal switch in her head, and it was all she could do to get the packaging open before gorging herself on precooked sausages.

When she wasn’t eating, she was laying in bed, swaddled in so many layers of blankets and comforters that she looked nearly spherical.   _ Of course _ , she thought bitterly,  _ I am nearly spherical _ .  The sight of her stomach had become hateful and alien to her.  What was this smooth orb of flesh? It couldn’t be June, who always walked to class by the longest route, who never took the elevator when there were stairs available.  Veins beneath her skin formed a delicate tracery, like some alien circuit board or the rivers of an unmapped continent. She imagined that she could feel crawling and squirming inside her.  At night she lay awake, wondering if each twinge and throb was her imagination. Over the past week she had become convinced that Dr. Crane’s reassurances were lies, and that the only sign she’d get of the impending birth would be a sharp pain as the hatching spiders chewed their way out of her belly.

June had come to a lot of conclusions in the past week, and foremost among them was that she really, absolutely did not want to die.

It wasn’t the sort of thing you thought about as a college student.  She had always been a cheerful child, never prone to glum depressions or sulking rages.  Her nani had died when she was five, and she remembered laying her tiny hand on the old woman’s cool, wrinkled forehead.  Little June had understood the concept of death just fine, but never as something that applied to her. Even after interminable lessons on the dangers of drunk driving and drug use, which included some pretty graphic pictures, she hadn’t worried about it.   _ She _ didn’t drink or smoke dope, so why should she care?

Now she cared.  Her swollen tummy felt like a bomb, the fuse hissing away somewhere inside her.  Every night brought terrible dreams: she imagined herself exploding like a bomb, releasing a toxic cloud that seeped through the streets and alleys.  Everyone who breathed it in died. Other times she would imagine waking up to find that spiders had gnawed away her flesh, leaving her a bleached skeleton.  The nausea had mostly passed, but it had left behind a cold and lurking fear that consumed her waking thoughts.

She moaned and put a hand to her forehead.  Her skin felt cool to her touch, but her thoughts were racing, fevered.  Vivid images flashed behind her eyes. She saw chitinous scales and soft flesh intertwined, warm lips and cold claws.  Shadowy figures coiled and embraced in a fog of lust. Unconsciously, one hand crept down around her round belly and reached into her cotton pajamas.  She bit her lip and closed her eyes as the images cartwheeled through her overclocked brain. She saw herself, dripping, naked, arising from a still pond to be embraced by a woman made of thorns and darkness.  The woman’s kiss cut June’s lips to ribbons, but she pressed herself eagerly into it all the same. Her groping fingers found her clit and she gasped. The bud was aching, throbbing, desperate for release. The slightest touch set of explosions inside her, as though she had been stuffed full of fireworks and was holding the detonator.  She felt primed and ready, like a powder keg awaiting only a lit match.

She began to rub in a semi-circle.  Her fingertips explored the softness of her quim, tracing along the edges of her furrow and teasing the tight pearl of her clit.  Her body responded immediately. Sweat beaded on her forehead, mirroring the wetness now gathering between her thighs. She moaned low in her throat, a growl like a trapped animal.  Her other hand reached up and squeezed one of her nipples, and an explosion of pleasure went off there, too. Her whole body was on edge, taut with an electric tingle that earthed itself everywhere she touched.  Her nipples, her clit, her lips, her stomach, every touch was a riot of sensation that threatened to drown the fragile thread of her self-control. Unafraid of who might hear, she called out in a husky, throaty voice.  “Oh… ohhhh FUCK. OH FUCK, OH GOD, OH GOD, oh OH OHHHHHHH!” 

Her first orgasm went off in a silent bloom behind her eyes like an explosion too loud to be heard.  The aftershocks shook and jittered her limbs. Her eyelids fluttered like trapped moths. Her mouth opened and closed uncontrollably, but no sound came out.  She did not stop, could not. Whatever she had let out of its cage was fully in the driver’s seat. Two fingers plunged into her sodden cunt. When she tried to caress her clit with the ball of her thumb, the intensity of the sensation almost blinded her.  Instead she worked her fingers in and out of herself, loving the slick slap and squelch as her juices spattered across her thighs. She lay sprawled on her back, pinned by the weight of her stomach, one hand furiously frigging her soaking-wet honeypot and the other squeezing and caressing her nipple.  Her breasts heaved with exertion as she drew in a deep, rattling breath. In her mind, the woman of thorns had bent down and buried her head between June’s legs. She could feel the woman’s razor sharp tongue slicing her apart, but there was no pain, only a timeless ecstasy that held her in a vicegrip.

June came twice more… that she was aware of.  Each time was lightning across her skin and fire in her heart, terrible elemental forces that shook and tore the land and left shattered rubble in their wake.  After that she lost herself in the fog.

When she awoke, hours later, she was sprawled nude atop the bed.  Her pajamas and panties had vanished somewhere. Her blankets were soaked with sweat and less identifiable fluids, and she could smell a musty, feral aroma.  She shuddered. It had been like a storm breaking suddenly across her, a squalling wind against which she was helpless. She wrapped herself in the driest blanket she could find and lurched out of bed, one arm held protectively around the swollen orb of her stomach.  She had to piss like a racehorse, and she was hungry. No, not hungry.

_ Ravenous _ .

 

_ Week 4 _

June took a deep breath, adjusted her hoodie, and knocked on the door.  Four weeks of isolation in her apartment was enough. She had been on the verge of calling her friend Samara a dozen times.  She missed Sam, missed the brownies she always made for Netflix Nights, missed her meandering stories of her latest bar conquest… but to be honest, she mostly just missed human contact.  

Every time she thought she couldn’t take any more, every time she thought she just had to go outside, she looked at herself.  Dark veins crisscrossed her belly, pulsing not-quite-in-rhythm to her heartbeat. Her skin was clammy, her hair limp and oily.  She felt like a tumor in the shape of a person, a wound in the face of the world. She hated what had been done to her. Hated it.  How had she agreed to this? How had she let some monster out of a nightmare parasitize her? The idea of having children had always been a happy one for June—despite her loud protestations to her mother, she couldn’t wait to be a mother.  This seemed like a sick joke, a fulfillment of all her hopes and a negation of them all at once. 

She had dialed 9-1 more than once, her finger hovering over the final 1.  She was sure that modern medicine could fix this. She could get some kind of abortion.  No, that was for a baby. These weren’t babies, they were monster seeds, and she could feel them wobbling in her guts with every unsteady step.  What held her back was the thought of being treated like a scientific curiosity for what remained of her life, and something else: a voice, so faint as to be on the edge of hearing.   _ You made a promise. _

Perhaps the isolation was driving her mad.  The other day, though, she had seen a wondrous thing.  She had taken to watching out the window during the day for hours at a time.  Her schoolwork lay neglected, but she found it impossible to focus. People, though… she saw them laughing, running, stumbling, smiling, kissing.  The windowpane felt like a portal to another world, one June was no longer part of. She had seen an older gentleman navigating down the sidewalk with a red-and-white striped cane, dark glasses framing his face… and, by a miracle, he had turned in at her walkway and tottered up her steps.  A few moments later she heard the downstairs apartment door creak open and then shut.

She had a neighbor!  She had not seen another car in the driveway, and the downstairs lights were never on, but she had a neighbor.  A  _ blind  _ neighbor.  A neighbor who couldn’t see what she had become.  And so June, wrapped protectively in two hoodies and with a blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape, walked hesitantly down the old wooden stairs and summoned up her courage outside his door.

There was no response to her knock for a long time, and June had almost gone back upstairs, when she heard a faint rustling.  There was a metallic scrape, and the door opened about two inches. She could not see any face in the gap, but a quavery voice from the other side asked “Who is it?”

June realized she had been holding her breath, released it, and spoke up.  “It’s, uh, me. June. I live, uh, upstairs, is where I live… upstairs. I’m, I’m your neighbor.  I’m June.”

Another long silence.  June wondered what she had been thinking.  The door didn’t open, but it didn’t close either.  Someone on the other side was breathing heavily. Finally, the voice spoke up again.  It sounded weary, but there was a hint of a smile in the words. “You’d better come inside, young lady.”

The door closed, and June heard a chain rattle before it swung open again.  On the other side was an old man with a face like a prune. His eyes were blue and filmy below a few scattered wisps of hair as white as dandelion seeds.  His nose was red and florid, his lips mottled purple. He wore a pair of khaki trousers and a blue chambray shirt under a plaid sweater vest. “I hope my eyes don’t disturb you, young lady,” he said, as he turned around and began to walk into his apartment.  “I take my glasses off at home.” He moved slowly but confidently, and June noticed that his cane was leaning against one wall. He seemed to know where every obstacle and piece of furniture was, and his hands found the kitchen light switch and flicked it on.  The room flickered a couple of times before the bulb overhead caught.

“My name is Kaspar.  Would you like some tea, Miss June?”

June hadn’t had any tea herself in more than a week.  She never used to go a day without a cup, but lately it seemed… less important.  She surprised herself with the fervency of her response. “Yes, please!”

The old man waved off her help.  He filled his ancient copper tea kettle from the sink, carried it to the stove, and lit the burner from a matchbook that rested on the counter.  Rather than return to the table, he bustled around the room, fetching a pair of surprisingly delicate teacups with saucers, two small silver spoons, a small silver pitcher of cream, and a porcelain bowl of sugar.  By the time he had arranged all of these items on the table, the water was boiling. He scooped up two teabags from a drawer, dropped one in each cup, then expertly poured the water. June flinched at the sight of Kaspar’s milky gaze on her as he handled a kettle of boiling water, but he did not spill a single drop.  He sat down across from her and stirred his teacup with a vacant smile on his face. June busied herself with cream and sugar, hoping he would say something to break the silence, but he seemed content to sit quietly and sip at his tea.

Finally she felt the silence grating on her.  “This is delicious. Thank you very much, sir.”  Kaspar smiled and waved a hand in a “don’t-bother” gesture.  “Oh, it’s passable. I’m afraid I can’t get the good stuff anymore.  No, not anymore. Not for years and years now.” He sipped again. “What brings you to my door, Miss June?”

June swallowed hard.  What  _ had _ brought her down?  She couldn’t exactly tell this man the truth.  “Well, I wanted to meet you, because we’ve been living in the same—”

“Don’t worry about that, young lady.  I hear you up there. You sound young, but you’re home 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  You pace. You’re in trouble, aren’t you? It’s OK, I won’t pry. Your business is yours.” He smiled, his sightless eyes fixed on a point five inches to the right of June’s shoulder.  “You don’t have to stand on ceremony here. What is bothering you?”

June’s mouth gaped open.  She forced it closed, and tried to think of a response.  What did he mean by “in trouble?” What did he know? Was he blind at all, or was it a ruse?

“It’s all right, Miss June,” Kaspar said, as if reading her thoughts.  “I have little to do all day but listen. And these old houses carry sound very well.  I wasn’t spying on you. We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. I’m glad of the company, and I’m afraid boredom has made my tongue looser than it should be.”

“N-no, that’s ok,” June stammered.  “I guess I just… I have a decision to make, and I’m running out of time to make it, and I want to make sure I decide right.”  Kaspar nodded. “A common problem, young lady. One I’ve had to deal with myself. What is holding you up?”

June tried to think of the best way to put this.  “Well, it’s like… what if you trust someone, and you make a pretty big decision based on that, and then later you think they’re not so trustworthy after all?  Is it fair to change your mind? Even if,” she gulped, “even if there are some pretty big consequences to doing so?”

Kaspar sipped at his tea.  “Well, what makes you think this person can’t be trusted?  You mustn’t have thought so once, or you wouldn’t have agreed to do what they want, no?”

June shrugged.  “It’s just… it feels like the deal is changing, without my agreeing to it.  It feels like she—like  _ they _ weren’t honest with me at the start, and maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, you know?”

“But you did agree, yes?  There’s a bargain of some kind involved?” Kaspar replied.  June nodded, caught herself, then spoke. “Yes. A bargain.  And it’s almost… up, I guess. But I don’t know if it’s going to work out.  I think it would be better if I just cancelled.”   
  
“Because you don’t trust this person?”

“Because… I guess, yes, I don’t trust them, but also because this whole thing has been so much worse than I expected.  So much more horrible. I guess I didn’t think about it too hard at the start, but she—they knew what I was signing up for, and they didn’t say anything.”  This felt dangerous to talk about, but June couldn’t help it. Unburdening herself after so long was a relief beyond compare. “So now I have no idea what’s going to happen next, and I’m supposed to just go along with it, and I don’t want to anymore.  It could be dangerous, I mean. For me. Personally dangerous.”

June looked away from Kaspar’s unnerving stare.  His silver tea spoon swirled around and around in his cup.  Finally, he put it down and rested his hands on the table.

“Miss June, let me tell you a story.  In nineteen forty eight, I was young and impressionable.  My father had come to this country from Germany in 1925, and he saw his homeland become a dark and monstrous place.  I grew up knowing what my former countrymen had done, and I was ashamed. I wanted to prove I was as good as any corn-fed American boy, so I joined the army.

I was sent to Korea, and in nineteen fifty I was deployed to the Chosin Reservoir.  There was a terrible battle, an attack from all sides. We were cut off and surrounded.  Someone threw a grenade, and I ran away from it, but not fast enough. All I remember is a loud noise and a pain in the back of my head.

When I woke up hours later, I couldn’t see anything.  I could tell it was nighttime by the temperature, but the world was as black as if someone had tied a cloth around my eyes.  I was sore, and tired, and wounded, and I could not find any other Americans, though I could hear fighting in the distance. I dared not cry out, for fear of attracting Chinese soldiers.  I wandered for a while, in circles I think, and then sat down on a rock and wept.

That was when I heard a voice.  It was a child’s voice, and it was speaking in Korean, which I knew a little of.  ‘American GI,’ the voice said. ‘You are an American GI, yes?’ And I said I was. I was too tired to lie.  ‘Come with me, American GI,’ said the child. ‘I know where the Americans are.’

I knew that the child might be lying.  This was a terrible war, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and many of the civilians helped the Chinese and North Koreans even as their neighbors helped the Americans and South Koreans.  This child could be luring me to my death. But then, I thought, if I ran away, where would I run to? And there was no guarantee that I would find another guide, or if I did, if that person would lead me astray.  So I said ‘Please, take me to the Americans,’ and I offered the child my ration chocolate. I felt a tiny hand grab my own and I followed, stumbling in a world of darkness, until up ahead I heard American voices. Then I almost cried with relief, and I was still crying when they put me on a helicopter and sent me home.”

Kasper sipped at his tea, oblivious to June’s enthralled expression.  “Miss June, sometimes, you just have to trust someone. You learn that when you’re blind.  There are plenty of people out there who will play a mean trick on a blind man, but many more who will give up their seat to him, or help him pick out canned goods at the supermarket, or help him cross the street.  You never know what kind of person you’re going to get, but sometimes, you just have to trust them, and trust that things will work out.”

June’s mind raced.  The promise she had made to Dr. Crane echoed in her head.  She thought about the woman’s desperation, about her lost lover and the fake ad she had placed to lure in a surrogate.  “How will I know if I’ve made a mistake?” she asked. “Trusting someone? Is there any way to tell before they betray you?”

Kaspar smiled.  “I can’t say for certain, Miss June.  But if you do the right thing, let me tell you, you will know it.  You can feel it here.” He laid his hand on his heart. “If you made a bargain, you have to trust someone.  But they have to trust you, too. Whomever this person is who you’re worried about, they made a choice to trust you.”

June thought about Dr. Crane.  She saw the spider body, but she also saw the woman’s face, her sad dark eyes and the hope in her smile when June had agreed.  June picked up her teacup and was surprised to find that it was empty. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I think I have to go, Kaspar.  Thank you very much for the tea. It was a pleasure to meet you.”   


Kaspar stood up slowly and held out his hand.  “Thank you for coming over, Miss June, and keeping an old man company.  Stop by anytime. Good luck.”

_ Week 5 _

Ah Crane laced and unlaced her fingers.  An observer might have noticed that this was a more complex process than it would have been with most people; her fingers, though clean and apparently normal, seemed to have too many joints.  They furled and bent around each other like snakes. When she had implanted her eggs into June Mariam, she had circled a date on her calendar one month in the future. That red circle had been three days ago, and there was no sign of June.  Dr. Crane had called the number the girl had left; the first time, it had rung through, and later calls had gone straight to voicemail.    
  
She supposed she would have heard if June had gone to a hospital, or if someone else had discovered the truth about her “pregnancy.”  No matter how the powers that be tried to hush it up, that kind of thing always made it out; if nothing else, a few grainy photos appeared in the supermarket tabloids, the kind nobody ever believed.  Dr. Crane had seen enough in her long life to know that those tabloids got more right than even they knew. She had been buying each issue, hoping not to see a headline screaming I MARRIED A SPIDER! Nothing so far, but there were other things to be afraid of.  What if June had fled to another city? What if she had died, either due to an unforeseen complication or merely by accident? Dr. Crane understood her own unique biology better than anyone else alive, but the very existence of her hybrid children was a marvel. She had done her best to ensure a safe and healthy delivery, but there was so much she didn’t know, and so many ways it could go wrong.

In the bad old days, before the rise of the humans’ cities and the explosive spread of their technology, it would have been trivial to lure away some unsuspecting farmwife and trap her in a web, where she could both nurture and feed the brood.  That had been Dr. Crane’s way for a long time. Her kind had always found simple, direct solutions the best… and now they were all dead, so perhaps there was something to be said for subtlety. Besides, she was more than an animal. It had mattered to Joshua, and it mattered to her.  She had put her heart in a human’s hands; now, she had to put her future in the hands of another.

June grimaced in pain every time the bus bounced over a pothole.  She had woken up that morning with terrible cramps, and was running for the bathroom when a spasm of pain wracked her body.  It felt like a wave that passed downward through her core and tightened her muscles. It passed, and she staggered to her feet.  Her nausea was back, and worse than ever. As she bent over the toilet, another cramp roiled her guts, and she moaned. It took a moment for her bleary mind to make the connection.  Were these contractions?

She sank to the floor and rested one hand on her swollen belly.  She had spent the past few days assessing her options. She could probably get to a hospital, and tell them she had passed out at a party.  The doctors might think she had been the victim of a hideous hazing ritual, and certainly they’d get the eggs out of her. On the other hand, she kept thinking about the old man downstairs; his milky blind eyes, his faith in strangers.  

Her options suddenly shrank down to two.  There was a bus stop a block from her apartment.  The uptown bus would take her to Dr. Crane’s little clinic.  The downtown bus would take her to the emergency room. She pulled herself to her feet and staggered towards the bedroom, towards her bulky hoodie and her even bulkier coat.  

Outside she got a few confused looks, but it was a cold day, and she was far from the only person wrapped up.  The bus was mostly abandoned at this time of day. The commuters were sitting down at their desks, and people running midday errands were still getting ready at home.  The bus’s only occupants were June, a young couple who stared dreamily into each others’ eyes, and a strung-out looking young man nodding in one of the back seats. The driver’s eyes followed June to her seat, but he said nothing as he pulled away.

The contractions were coming faster now, and each one made June bite down for fear of crying out.  She didn’t want attention from a would-be Good Samaritan. She focused on the pain, trying to dissect and analyze it, to notice each individual facet: duration, direction, where it lingered and where it left her alone.  It became easier, even as the waves came faster and faster. By the time she pulled the cord to signal her stop and tottered out of the bus, she had a handle on it. 

Dr. Crane’s reverie broke as one of the alarms in her underground home buzzed.  She could have toggled on the security camera footage, but she didn’t need to. There was a smell in her nostrils, just one particle floating on a million million others, but all the more noticeable for that.  She scurried up her ladder and scuttled down the hallway.

As soon as June got inside, the pain seemed to double.  She limped along, letting out a continuous hiss like a boiling tea kettle.  If someone else saw her now, she  _ would _ beg for help, no matter who it was.  It felt as though her insides were churning.  She pictured a tiny ship tossed on building-sized waves.  It bounced and spun helplessly between crests. 

Her vision blurred, then doubled.  Up ahead was a door set in the wall of the corridor.  Was that Dr. Crane’s door? It had better be—June lacked the strength to go on.  She pulled herself up against the door, let her fist fall weakly against it, then slumped down.  As darkness rose up, she felt strong arms reach under her shoulders and pull.

Dr. Crane opened her door and darted aside as June nearly collapsed onto her.  Looking both ways, she was relieved to see the corridor was clear. She grabbed the semi-conscious young woman and dragged her inside.  She shut the door behind her and bolted it as an afterthought. 

June’s breathing was steady, but her eyes fluttered and her mouth hung open.  She was wearing so many layers Dr. Crane was astonished that she wasn’t sweating more.  She peeled off the girl’s jacket, her scarves, her coat, and the enormously baggy hoodie.  Underneath all the layers, June was wearing a ragged-looking white bra that strained at its clasp.  Her caramel-colored breasts overspilled it from every angle. Beneath it, her belly rose in a mountain of taut brown skin.  Dr. Crane could see movement underneath, a faint wiggling. June’s time was close now, so close. Dr. Crane picked her up effortlessly and cradled her in her arms like a baby.  She made for the room she had prepared, with an extra-large bed equipped with a pair of stirrups.

June was wearing the baggy jeans Dr. Crane had given her, and in her agitation, the spider-woman couldn’t get the button open.  She hissed angrily and raised a limb. One hooked talon ran along June’s leg, parting the denim like a wet napkin without touching the skin.  She did it again on the other side and pulled June’s pants off like the shed skin of a lizard. Beneath, she hadn’t been wearing any underwear—a strange choice, given how many layers she had put on—and beneath it, she was trembling.  A small thicket of dark black curls thatched her pubic mound, a testament to the difficulty of shaving with a stomach the size of a beach ball. Dr. Crane lifted June’s legs into the stirrups and secured them, then reached for her forceps.

...

June’s eyes opened and she groaned.  She was laying on her back, legs spread.  The globe of her stomach filled her vision.  She groped blindly past it with her right hand.  Summoning up her strength, she mumbled “Dr…. Crane…?”

A dark shape blotted out the overhead lights.  For a moment, it looked horrifying, a bulbous ovoid bristling with strange protrusions and dotted with soulless eyes.  Then June’s eyes focused on it and she saw the kindly, smiling face of Dr. Ah Crane. The spider-woman reached out one hand and clasped June’s, squeezing gently.

“I’m here, miss Mariam.  I’m here for you. You made it to me just in time.  You’re safe. You’re going to be OK.” Her voice was low, husky, reassuring.  June exhaled and managed a weak smile. “I… know. I… trust you.” Speaking was an effort, but she had something she wanted to say, and she knew that soon she would have to focus all of her efforts on pushing.  “I… was… scared, Doctor. But… I… can… feel… them. Your… babies.”   
  
Tears filled Dr. Crane’s eyes.  She rested her other hand on June’s stomach.  It seemed to glow from within, though that was surely her imagination.  Warmth radiated off of it. Dr. Crane blinked her eyes clear and looked between June’s legs.  “June, you’re dilated nicely, I can see it. Just breathe. Here comes the first one now. Push, June!  Push! I’m so proud of you, June! You’re doing such a great job! It’s almost done, now, push!”

June breathed, and pushed, and breathed again.  She could feel new life entering the world. In that moment, it didn’t matter that the new life was a gigantic spider.  It didn’t matter that her midwife was a half-human monster. It didn’t matter that none of this was how she had envisioned it as a child, that a month ago she had been figuring out which jewelry to sell.  Here and now, she was right where she belonged, and as Dr. Crane cradled the first of her children in her hands and June felt the second one starting to come, her heart filled with joy.

  
  
  



End file.
